High Blood Pressure: Natural Self-help for Hypertension, including 60 recipes. Michelle Berriedale-Johnson

High Blood Pressure: Natural Self-help for Hypertension, including 60 recipes - Michelle  Berriedale-Johnson


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      Eat to Beat High Blood Pressure

       Natural Self-help for Hypertension, including 60 recipes

      Dr Sarah Brewer and Michelle Berriedale-Johnson

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Chapter 4: High Blood Pressure and Olive Oil

       Chapter 5: High Blood Pressure and Oily Fish

       Chapter 6: High Blood Pressure, Folic Acid and Homocysteine

       Chapter 7: High Blood Pressure and Salt

       Chapter 8: High Blood Pressure, Fruit and Vegetables

       Chapter 9: High Blood Pressure and Garlic

       Chapter 10: High Blood Pressure and Tea

       Chapter 11: High Blood Pressure and Red Wine

       Part Three: The Recipes

       Chapter 12: Introduction

       Chapter 13: Soups and Starters

       Chapter 14: Fish

       Chapter 15: Meat and Poultry

       Chapter 16: Vegetables and Vegetarian Dishes

       Chapter 17: Desserts

       Chapter 18: Baking

       Part Four: Taking it Further

       Chapter 19: High Blood Pressure and Food Supplements

       Chapter 20: High Blood Pressure and Healthy Weight

       Chapter 21: High Blood Pressure and Lifestyle

       Useful Addresses

       Index

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      Whether or not you develop high blood pressure (hypertension) is influenced by several factors. These are your genes, the way you eat, and other aspects of your lifestyle such as the amount of exercise you take, whether or not you smoke, and the amount of alcohol you drink. Eating to beat high blood pressure is not only possible, it is one of the mainstays of effective treatment. This book looks at how various dietary changes can help to reduce a raised blood pressure and lessen your risk of developing associated complications such as coronary heart disease and stroke.

      Making simple, healthy changes to your lifestyle can also significantly reduce your chances of contracting coronary heart disease. For instance, if you stop smoking, your risk of getting heart disease drops by 50–70 per cent within five years. If you take up regular exercise, your risk falls by 45 per cent. Keeping your alcohol intake within healthy limits will also have a beneficial effect. Drinking two or three units a day can reduce your chances of heart disease by as much as 25–45 per cent, but excessive intakes increase the risk. Losing excess body weight will bring your chances of heart disease down by 35–55 per cent. For more on lifestyle changes, see Chapters 20 and 21.

      Food supplements are also effective in helping to maintain a healthy circulation. For more about these, please see Chapter 19.

      The delicious recipes provided by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson will make eating to beat hypertension as pleasant and easy as possible.

PART ONE The Facts about High Blood Pressure

       CHAPTER 1 What is High Blood Pressure?

      Everyone needs a certain blood pressure (BP) to keep blood moving around their body and maintain their circulation. Blood pressure exists because your heart pumps blood around a closed system, rather like a boiler pumping water through a series of central heating pipes. The pressure in your arteries therefore depends on a number of factors, including the volume of fluid inside your circulation, how hard your heart is pumping at any given time, and the elasticity or ‘resistance’ of the vessels the blood is passing through.

      Normal BP varies naturally throughout the day and night, going up and down in response to your emotions and level of activity. If you have high blood pressure, however, your BP will remain consistently high, even when you are asleep.

      The heart alternately contracts and relaxes as it pumps to produce the heartbeat. Each contraction produces a surge in pressure. The highest pressure reached in the arteries during this surge is known as the systolic pressure as it is due to contraction (systole) of the heart. As the heart rests between beats, blood pressure falls again and the lowest blood pressure


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